


Before He Was The Cynic

by audreyscout (orphan_account)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/audreyscout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire hasn't always been this way...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before He Was The Cynic

_Enjolras was furious. The tension in the room was palpable, and everyone tried their best to ease it by keeping busy. Cosette and Marius excused themselves- something about meeting Cosette’s father for lunch. Eponine stepped out to pick up Gavroche from school. Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Jehan sorted through a stack of papers. Grantaire stared down at his hands._

_They were all used to Grantaire’s snide remarks and blatant cynicism. This time, he had gone too far._

_“Grantaire, I don’t know what the fuck has gotten into you today, but it needs to stop. I’ll ban you from meetings if I have to,” Enjolras stresses every word in a bitter, fierce tone that leaves Grantaire’s bottom lip shaking. He has seen Enjolras angry before. He has seen him sad, frustrated, tired, and upset. He has made Enjolras angry before. But never this angry, he’s never made him so furious._

_Grantaire hasn’t always been this way…_

\---

 

At the age of six, he saw a commercial for the local humane society on TV. He convinced his parents to give him an old mason jar with which he collected money from relatives. The jar was filled within a few weeks, and he proudly marched into the shelter and gave it to the nice woman at the front desk. She smiled and offered him a lollipop. He was the happiest six-year-old in the world that day.

 

At fourteen, he learned that most of the animals in shelters are euthanized because of the lack of space and resources. His stomach dropped as he remembered the jar of money he so gladly donated- a pitiful amount and nowhere near enough to make the difference he desired.

 

When he was ten, a man from an NGO presented a speech at his school about how children in third world countries need education in order to better their lives. He went around the school, encouraging classmates and peers to raise money for a school to be built in Sierra Leone. They reached their goal, and a picture of a smiling Grantaire was featured in the city’s paper that week. 

 

He read an article when he was fifteen that stated that most of the money going to NGO’s never reaches the people it is meant to help. His mother found the framed newspaper cutting from when he was ten in the trash that evening. 

 

He turned thirteen and nearly failed his math course at school. His father tore his sketchbook in two and told him to stop dreaming or else he would never amount to anything.  


When he was twelve, he made an extra sandwich everyday for the homeless man who he always passed on his way to school. The man thanked him, and sometimes they had conversations about what he was studying in school, UFOs, superheroes, and current events. This went on until Grantaire’s father found out, and started driving him to and from school everyday. He never saw the man again.

 

At eighteen, he had to call an ambulance for a man who overdosed in the bathroom of the café he worked in. The man had a seizure, and Grantaire tried everything he could to keep him comfortable, keep him alive, but he died before the paramedics got there. Grantaire finished a bottle of wine on his own that night.

 

Everyday he would pick up the paper and be bombarded with images and stories of war, violence, and crime. It was always the same, and all of the time and money he donated to various causes never made it stop. He shut everything out in an attempt to forget how much it made his heart ache. The boy who had tried to do so much for the world realized he would never be able to do enough.

 

\---

_“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, still staring at his hands. He felt ashamed and couldn’t bear to look Enjolras in the eye; Enjolras, who he admired and loved; Enjolras, who reminded him of the boy he used to be, the dreamer who wanted to save the world; Enjolras, who knew nothing of Grantaire’s childhood. Grantaire stood, gathered the sheets of paper on which he had been doodling, and walked out the door. He returned to his messy apartment, and only then did the tears start to fall._


End file.
